Undisciplining the Fields — Abou Farman and Tonya M. Foster: March 14, 2023

Tonya M. Foster welcomes the audience, thanks her hosts, and speaks of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement for women’s empowerment in Iran and relating events taking place concurrently. She introduces Abou Farman, anthropologist, poet, performance artist. On the display behind the poets’ heads is a collaborative interactive virtual space, where Foster is writing extemporaneously as Farman is reading his poetry, and Farman is drawing graphics extemporaneously as Foster reads what she’s written. Foster speakes to collaboration and play: “play is always a conversation.” Farman mentions the afternoon’s occasion as just before Iranian New Year, then asks the people in the audience to get up, acknowledge the nearest person, switch places with them, and feel their prior presence.

Farman and Foster alternate, reading short bits of their writings as response to one another's words:

Farman reads, beginning “Of all the things....” Foster reads, beginning “Three or four forces....” Farman reads, beginning: “A magnetic field....” Foster reads, beginning “What is a mammary for?” Farman reads, beginning “Until then we didn’t know the body had so many miracles....” Foster reads, beginning “What is need?” Farman reads, beginning “Appearance makes particles unstable....” Foster reads, beginning “Time is unstable....” Farman reads, beginning “Under the supermoon in the rainforest....” Foster reads, beginning “Beth Secor says to pretend....” Farman reads, beginning “Let us start by not dying....” Foster reads, beginning “Knot the nots that come for the I....” Farman reads, beginning “Well, now I think I understand things I didn’t understand before about survival.” Foster reads, beginning with “There is such tenderness in this dying.” Farman reads, beginning “Ghosts come from there.” Foster reads, beginning “Where does there lead to?” Farman reads, beginning “When the other's gone, then seeing molecular confusion can be called loss.” Foster reads, beginning with “Maybe loss is the primary nature of day.” Farman reads, beginning with “I look around for the voice.” Foster reads, beginning “Looking where?”

Farman reads, beginning “Do not fear the soft orange glow of human beings.” Foster reads, beginning “One of the first things....” Farman reads, beginning “Fear the first....” Foster reads, beginning “Grief...” Farman reads, beginning “The actions of the dead are never trivial.” Foster reads, beginning “Connect the many dots....” Farman reads, beginning “Amongst the various things she did become....” Foster reads, beginning “The dead are never absent.” Farman reads, beginning “Where meaning ends, acts of reoccurrence appear.” Foster reads, beginning “The French have left their way of saying....” Farman reads, beginning “Stem, root, piston [sic], tendrils of grief...”

Foster reads from her essay, “Parentheticalities.” Farman reads, beginning “Make of the sorrow a dirge....” Foster continues from “Parentheticalities.” Farman reads, beginning “All the things....” Foster reads again from “Parentheticalities.”

Farman passes out tangerines and invites the audience to peel, taste, and smell them. 

Tonya Foster invites the people in the audience to each write a “second line” poem inspired by the New Orleans tradition of jazz funerals having a joyous “second line” — after the first line of the bereaved following the casket to the cemetery accompanied by a musical dirge, the second line breaks into dance and celebration. 

"And it's not frivolous. It's the joy that recognizes that death is in it too." (Foster)

The audience writes for seven minutes [edited from audio]. The audience then passes the mic around the room and reads their newly composed "second line" poems.

After thanking the audience for their writing and voicing of their poems, the writers come back to speak to the “Undisciplining the Fields” rubric. Working on the whiteboard, Foster asks Farman how he reads this, as a poet and as an anthropologist. Farman speaks of a "cyclical community" of the university, and of “undisciplining” as a means of moving away from the economy of reputation and as a means for doing free play. Foster stresses constant questioning of the boundaries that are crossed. Farman suggests an ethics of moving away from the economy of reputation toward a "circulation of creativity." 

An audience member asks the speakers about teaching. Foster answers that it is important to her “that the classroom be a space where experiments can happen.” Farman expands to criticize those who would diminish funding for education and the stature of what education can offer, and reflects on whether one becomes part of "the system" by teaching. Someone from the audience shares their experience of moving within the university toward a more creative path of study.

Foster asks us to "continually imagine that 'I am because you are'" rather than "distinguishing ourselves as a singular individual who rises up."